October 02, 2017

Helping Puerto Rico and the other islands

by Doctor Science

Here's something you can do to help Puerto Rico right now: process satellite images to map where the damage is. The Planetary Response Network at the Zooniverse just put up a new batch of low-resolution images for wide-scale mapping. Tomnod is using high-resolution images to pinpoint damage. I've been working on both projects from time to time since Irma came through. I've also helped analyze images from Barbuda, the Virgin Islands, and Dominica at the Zooniverse; they have a lot of volunteers, so they can process images very quickly.

These crowd-sourced maps of damage are used by relief organizations to plan where to go (and how to get there: which roads are blocked, which bridges are down). Participating is a way to help, and it's also a way to get a real sense of the scope of the problem. For instance, here's a location (from Tomnod, which doesn't give the latitude/longitude so I don't know what part of PR this is from): "before" is from earlier this year, "after" is from September 22.

You can see how massive the destruction is: mudslides, flooding, roads impassable, most buildings damaged, and at least half of the trees knocked down. I've seen many Tomnod images of Puerto Rican forest, and in many of them *all* the trees are down, it's just a heap of sticks.

The most important thing Americans can probably do is to call your Senators & Representative, which your fellow citizens in Puerto Rico (and the American Virgin Islands) can't do. The islands need massive logistic aid of the sort the US military is *really* good at -- at least when they get started early enough.

Any possibility of Puerto Rico's bondholders one day profiting from those debts was washed away in the hurricane.

So it's time for Jubilee. Cancel the debt. Erase it from the books.
...
Jubilee says that while, yes, creditors have a claim to repayment, debt must never be perpetual and permanent. A creditor's claim of perpetual obligation is illegitimate. It is untrue, unreal. A lie. There is a limit on how much can be squeezed, forever, from the indebted.

Otherwise we'll be looking at disaster capitalism, with the islands being re-shaped for the benefit of rich people and corporations who will privatize the profit, while socializing the increasing, climate-change-driven risks.
ETA: As I suspected, Fox News covered the crisis in PR much less than other networks did. This was crucial because President Trump treats FN as his most important news source. I don't know if anyone with White House access was pounding on tables, trying to get attention and resources directed toward PR, but it's not clear that it could become a WH priority until FN showed Trump some pictures.

"Two simple but powerful steps taken by Congress could hasten recovery and redefine the trajectory of the island’s future. First, the United States should assume all of the Puerto Rico’s outstanding bond debt. Second, in exchange for debt assumption, the federal government should establish the island as an Economic Freedom Zone. Within a year, these reforms would help rebuild Puerto Rico; within a decade, they could rebuild our conception of the free market in the Western Hemisphere."How Puerto Rico Can Rebuild and Become the Hong Kong of the West: The establishment of an Economic Freedom Zone, would set off an explosion of growth.

That is misleading. The enthusiasm for protectionism has never really abated. We have always, and continue to have, trade protections of one form or another. It's just a matter of who gets to benefit from it.

There has always been some enthusiasm for protectionism. But in the past it was constrained. I don't recall having both a President and the majority party in Congress being loudly opposed to international trade. But that feels like what I'm hearing today. And minimal if any recognition of the reality of how inseparably intertwined our economy is with the rest of the world.

Agreed that Puerto Rico, in my non-resident opinion, needs statehood. But so far, every time the question has been posed to them, they have have voted to retain Commonwealth status, rather than opting for statehood or independence.

The only sure bet is that we, the American taxpayers will pay the holders of Puerto Rican debt 100 cents on the dollar. I'm sure that our corporate overlords will find some social programs that they can cut to come up with the money.

The only wild card, is that if they get too greedy, and things get bad enough on the island, enough Puerto Ricans may come to the mainland, and register to vote to help swing a close election. (But then again, vote suppression and gerrymandering will probably wash out that effect.)

Hmmm...perhaps Puerto Rico should be abandoned and its population all move to Wisconsin, settle down in critical swing districts and register to vote.* Assuming they vote Dem, the Dems could gerrymander the GOP out of existence in that state.